Hakui Onsen
- Location
- Hakui, Ishikawa, Japan
- Water type
- bicarbonate
- Temperature
- 40 °C
- pH
- 8
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Soft water — natural, classic buoyancy.
Hakui Onsen lies on the Noto Peninsula's western shore in a city that holds the unlikely distinction of being one of Japan's leading centers of UFO enthusiasm — Hakui houses the Cosmo Isle Hakui, a space science museum dedicated to UFO phenomena that has drawn visitors from across Japan since the 1990s when the city officially proclaimed itself a 'UFO town' in response to an unusually high number of reported unidentified aerial phenomena sightings along its coastal dunes and rice paddies. The Noto Peninsula's western Chirihama Driveway extends along the coast near Hakui, a remarkable 8-kilometer stretch of firm sandy beach where vehicles can drive along the actual shoreline — one of only a few such legally drivable beaches remaining in Japan. The onsen's siliceous mineral waters provide warm therapeutic bathing in a coastal community whose combination of UFO tourism, Japan Sea coast scenery, and traditional Noto Peninsula agricultural culture creates one of Ishikawa's most entertainingly distinctive spa destinations.